


Sleep

by piperconnn



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Brief Mention of Blood, F/M, Post-Sgrub AU, Second person POV, minor language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 03:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piperconnn/pseuds/piperconnn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No troll in their right mind would ever turn their back on another troll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Something I wrote for the HSWC that I'm actually kind of proud of.

There are not many times that you contemplate having a conventional lusus. After all, you are Terezi Pyrope. You were always happy with her teachings, even if they were facilitated. You never needed the same kind of care that other trolls did. At almost nine sweeps, you still don't. You are independent, and you take pride in it. You have sailed through the ranks of Alternian legislaceration at an almost impossible age, and you and eleven of your friends made it through an impossible game to change the fabric of your universe as you know it.  
  
And yet, you can do nothing more than wonder about what your lusus may have told you, had she not been trapped within an egg.   
  
'Be smart, Terezi.'   
  
No, she would never say that. Even within the confines of your dream lessons, she was always as confident in your intellect as you were.   
  
'Be safe, Terezi.'   
  
Still no, you think. A lusus knows when a troll is a lost cause, and you have never been a lost cause. Not in Pyralspite's eyes, anyway. You have always been able to take care of yourself. You needed to, with her condition.  
  
'Never turn your back on another troll.'  
  
Never allow a troll to get at you in a moment of vulnerability. That, you believe, should go without saying. No troll should need to be told about the dangers of letting another have a chance at you. But, if that's the case, then what are you doing now?  
  
You have asked yourself that question numerous times over the past few perigees. In preparation for The Big Day, you have often stopped in your tracks, having to sit down, having to wonder about your choices. It is an unfamiliar feeling. You have never been so unsure of yourself since your adolescence; it's frightening.  
  
Eridan Ampora has that effect on you. Everything about him and your feelings for him are unconventional. You do not quiver when he brags about his success as an admiral, announcing how many armadas he has singlehandedly squashed. When he demonstrates the sheer power of his Ahab's Crosshairs, you never flinch. When he shoots through the ocean with a speed greater than that of the torpedoes he commands, you almost laugh.   
  
But then, he completely changes. As his lips graze the skin of your collarbone, you always find yourself holding your breath. When he smiles at you, one of the few shining moments that he shares with no one else, you feel your knees go weak beneath you. If his voice lowers to the faintest whisper, insisting on his beauty, on your importance to him, your own voice falters, disappearing in a short gasp of air.  
  
If he believed in magic, you would muse on the idea of him placing a curse on you. Capturing you, forcing you to change everything in his presence. The idea makes you angry. You fight with him, and he doesn't even know it. When he steals your breath you kiss him, taking it back by force. If he makes you feel weak you laugh with him, feeling your strength grow with the smallest dust of violet across his face. And if he renders you speechless then you must do the same, declaring that yes, you love him, and there is nothing he can do about it.  
  
These power struggles are what have been leading you to your demise. The moment that you declared your feelings for him, all was lost. There was no hope for you.   
  
When you told Eridan that you loved him, it was both out of spite and truth. How dare your matesprit turn you into a weakling? How dare he make you, the Seer of Mind, lose all rational thought? And how dare he make you need another person, make you question what you would do without him, make you determine that you would give your own life up for his in a matter of seconds? Sickening.   
  
His next move was a ploy, you're sure of it. He is a clever strategist, after all. After a moment of your victory, his stammering and searching for words, he took you by your shoulders, almost yanking you into a kiss of passion, your arms moving of their own volition to embrace him. Your body welled with so much anger and joy as he returned your feelings that you felt like you might have exploded. He pulled away, broke the kiss and left you leaning, then returned it all, insisting that he felt exactly the same.   
  
“You trust me, right Ter?” he asked, the same smile on his face that you have always delighted in getting to have.  
  
“I—What?” you stammered. You're still angry at yourself for that stupid answer. He grinned, and immediately you knew that he knew that he had the upper hand.   
  
“Wwe should provve it to each other. That wwe trust each other, I mean.” he answered. You gave him a quizzical look, your bright red eyes squinting at him despite useless gesture. He knew what it meant. “I can provve that I lovve you. Don't you wwant to?”  
  
It was a challenge then, the same way that it's a challenge now. Of course you wanted to, and he knew it. Your word as his matesprit and as a legislacerator was being challenged.   
  
His next words stunned you so much that you thought he had snapped, going insane right on the spot.   
  
“You should sleep ovver.”   
  
Your look must have intensified, because his smile slowly fades away. He knew better. Both of you did. Trolls don't share coons. No troll in the right mind would allow another one so close to them when they were asleep; it was a death sentence. Matesprits or not, it was silly to assume that another troll, especially a highblood, would overcome a millennial instinct for bloodlust.   
  
“I wwouldn't hurt you, Ter. You knoww that. I wwould nevver do somethin' like that to you.” he spoke up finally, cutting your shocked silence. There was a moment where you told yourself that of course he wouldn't do that, that's not the Eridan you know. Your mind flashed back to sweeps ago when you were only six, walking past the blown-apart body of Feferi Peixes as if she was a crime doll. He could do that to you in a second if he got the chance. But you knew that he wouldn't.  
  
The next moment was a moment of clarity. You realized that he never said the same for you. Eridan wasn't sure you wouldn't, quite literally, stab him in the back. Even as he sat before you, clutching your shoulders in his hands, he was unsure. Your mind flashed to Vriska, the blood on your hands, the sweeps following it of grief and misery. Your lips pursed tightly and you took a deep, calming breath.  
  
“Alright,” you answered quietly, and that was that.  
  
The following perigees were spent preparing. You needed a lot of time to ready yourself for one day, and even more time to remind yourself that this is not a death sentence. As you and Eridan prepared, you slowly began to glean a plan of action.  
  
The Big Day was to be in the hottest perigee of the second summer. Eridan takes himself so seriously, that you know it must be for some falsely philosophical reason. The nights grew hotter and more unbearable as the humidity seeps in, permeating the comfort of your tree. You noticed with some bitter masochism that as you became more frightened of the idea looming before you, the heat of the planet seemed to suffocate you more and more.   
  
His old crashed ship was repaired, turned into the naval battleship of its glory days. There were too many servants around to try there. He arranged for a large recuperacoon to be sent to your tree hive, delivered and filled by dutiful droids. The only trolls that could ever hope to afford one of those were of his blood caste or higher; you had to wonder what they were used for. Were there other trusting, loving, believing, foolish matesprits out there that could crawl in with their partners every dawn?   
  
You hadn't touched it from the moment it arrived. For over a perigee it stayed in one of your respiteblocks, surrounded by finished chalk drawings. That was another suggestion of Eridan's; he had it moved away from your usual block, full of your career ambitions. He wanted the place where the two of you solidified your trust for each other to be unique. You remember it fondly.  
  
He arrived shortly after one of your court evenings, bearing your favorite kind of chalk in a bright yellow and green block. The two of you started from opposite sides of the door, working around the square of the room in doodles. You drew of your days, and your adventures. You depicted yourself as your eyes turned, blinded as the result of a game gone wrong. You doodled yourself before His Honorable Tyranny. You drew the collection of your friends, both troll and human, before the Final Door. You sketched yourself and Eridan on a small stage, little chalk drawings stealing glances at each other from across a distance.  
  
Before you knew it, you and Eridan both reached the center of the back wall. You turned your head and inhaled, smelling Eridan's side. His side depicted himself on the back of his seahorse lusus, his acceptance of his wand, his death, and his rising through the ranks of the Alternian military. And then, at the end of his last wall, there was you. Your wall showed the most memorable moments of your life. His wall showed his growth.   
  
As you came to meet each other in the center, you both smiled. Eridan took your hand in his and raised it high up over your head, and in the center of the back wall, you both drew a large red heart to crown your joint recuperacoon. Sometimes while waiting for The Big Day, you would walk into the room and just allow the colors to flow around you.  
  
It nears steadily and you become restless in anticipation. Though you and Eridan met several times during the wait, you rarely spoke of it outside of the tasks to get ready. You continued as if everything was normal, as if you weren't painting a big, red target on your back. You envy Eridan and his ability to go on unafraid. The more you worry, the more scared you become of the notion that perhaps you don't truly trust him.  
  
You manage to shake these worries away as The Big Day arrives. As expected, it is burning inside and outside of your hive. Heat has risen to the top of your tree, causing you to almost pant. It is late evening, when Eridan shows in your hive, not bothering to announce himself. He doesn't need to, anyway. The moment that he zaps in, you recognize his scent. He always smells of the ocean, of salty mist sprinkled over warm sand. Today, though, he smells like something you haven't smelled in ages. It's almost... Hopeful. Curious.   
  
You meet him in the hall, padding through your hive quietly. He must have known how hot it would be because he is already in loose pajamas, his strong arms exposed, matching the cool clothes you have on. He stands beside the transportalizer and immediately offers you his hand. You take it. It's just barely sweaty, and you become instantly relaxed. He is as worried as you. Eridan is afraid, and you are afraid, and you are both putting yourselves on the line for one silly instance of proof. He's so much taller than you. Without a word, you step onto the tips of your toes and kiss him, stealing his breath before he can take yours. He smiles in relief at you, but it does not matter because when your knees go weak, he holds you in his arms, keeping you against his chest securely. Neither of you move. It's too safe to want to end it. Behind you, you hear an alarm, alerting you that it is almost day. The harsh Alternian sunlight will soon appear, and you both will soon grow weary. You hope with all of your heart that you both can ignore it, but you don't. Finally, after what feels like the blink of an eye, he pulls away to lean down to you. His voice is but a whisper.   
  
“Are you tired?” he asks.   
  
You do not go speechless, because for once you know exactly what words to say.   
  
“Yes. I'm ready when you are.” you answer, and take his hand once more. You both squeeze at the same time, sharing in the moment of togetherness and fear. He leads you on to the block, pushing the door open. The drawings and the recuperacoon remain untouched, but everything is memorized from your frequent trips in. The coon sits in the center of the room, massive, foreboding, like a monster. Its gaping maw could be the site of your death.   
  
Eridan lifts your hand and it takes you a moment to realize that he is helping you in first, readying you. You gulp and step up, pulling yourself over the edge before sliding into the soft, calming pool of slime. To return the favor you reach out both hands. Eridan takes them and guides himself into the hole, cause ripples besides you. This is it, you figure. Now or never.  
  
Suddenly you begin to panic, thinking of the reasons he could want you dead. Your position in the justice system could rival his one day, potential laws that you make obstructing on his military. And how you mock him! You laugh constantly at him, poking fun at his mistakes and flaws. Then, there's the way that you hesitated, how you didn't immediately declare your utmost trust for him. He could find another matesprit that wasn't begging for a death sentence, if he wanted. This could be an easy way to get rid of you.  
  
Your thoughts are interrupted as you notice his long arms wrapping around you, and a chaste kiss being placed on your lips. His own lips shake as he does, and his arms quiver around you. You come closer, your chest against his and your head leaning against his collarbone. You return the kiss, pecking the exposed skin of his neck. In turn, he cranes his neck and places another kiss, right between your horns. This continues for a while, the both of you silently reassuring each other that everything will be alright, that you both will survive to the following evening.   
  
“I lovve you, Ter.”   
  
“I love you, Eridan.”  
  
It's as simple as that. There is no hesitation, no blushing, no fighting. You don't attempt to one-up each other, you do not stammer, or doubt yourself. Everything is settled, as the sopor slime slowly begins to permeate your pores, making you drowsy. This is nice, and you realize that if you ever were told not to by your lusus, you would disregard it. You barely miss his yawn, only noticing it as you catch it and release it again. You're tired. You're both tired.  
  
The last thing you notice before you drift to sleep is how his soft, cool skin combats the harsh Alternian summer.


End file.
